34 



and the male on the other, unable to find one another ; after a time 

 he sometimes gives it up and flies away. If, however, he success- 

 fully locates her he climbs upon her back, and both insects cease 

 flashing. If another male flies by, the female may call to him and 

 attract him also, but our observations on this species hardly confirm 

 those of Emery on the " Lucciole," when he found that they would 

 collect into groups, each consisting of one female surrounded by 

 several males. Neither do we agree as to the long period that 

 elapses before actual copulation takes place. We frequently noticed 

 this act after only a few minutes, and at all times during the flight. 

 Sometime the insects, in cop., were found to be sitting tail to tail 

 along a stem, but not always. They were also noticed to flash 

 occasionally when in cop. The operation is not of long duration 

 (at any rate in captivity), and they part again, and one female will 

 pair more than once in one evening. 



The males, both in captivity and in nature, i.e., when caught in 

 a spider's web, were observed to glow with a constant though not 

 very brilliant light, somewhat resembling the steady light of a 

 female, but no case of flying males approaching these dead males 

 was observed. In captivity, if kept damp and without food, they 

 would live about a week. 



Eggs were laid pretty readily, in irregular batches, about the 

 bottom of the box. They are round, salmon-pink in colour, and a 

 number together were faintly luminous in the dark, though this was 

 hardly noticeable in single individuals. They were -026 inches in 

 diameter. They hatched about July 20th, the young larvte being 

 at first very pale, but soon darkening almost to black. They fed 

 readily on chopped up slugs or snails, and would gather in numbers 

 round each piece, radiating out from it all round with their bodies 

 trailing away to one side so that each collection resembled a small 

 Catherine wheel. As they filled out with feeding they seemed to 

 lose their blackness, in part at any rate, owing to the horny plates 

 being separated from one another by soft pale intervals, the horny 

 plates themselves, however, seemed to become browner and less 

 shiny. About the middle of August they began to change skin, but 

 in this respect Mr. Main's seemed to be much more uniform than 

 my own. On August 27th he showed me a number all obviously 

 in the same skin, though some were older and fuller than others, 

 but he was positive that none had moulted twice. My own, though 

 fewer in number, were not so carefully observed, but I felt positive 

 that some of them had changed twice. 



The young larvae are plainly, though not very strongly, luminous 

 at night, and although unicolorous in their first skin, after their 

 first moult there were two distinct round spots on the penultimate 

 segment. After moulting, they were at first again quite pale, then 

 became almost black and shiny, with the two last segments paler 

 than the rest. As they fed these characteristics appeared to 

 diminish, as noted in their first stage. 



